


Heads and Tails

by phoenixflight



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Friendship, Tails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/pseuds/phoenixflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrote this for a prompt at the kink meme that said "give them tails!" So I did! :D</p><p>Charles’ chocolate brown tail, always very slightly scruffy and unkempt, brushed against Raven's ankles. Every time Erik noticed, it sent a shiver of unease through him. He kept his own sleek silver tail coiled tightly against his leg- an old habit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heads and Tails

The thing that startled Erik most, the first time he saw Charles and Raven together (when he actually had the composure to think, instead of lying half drowned and gasping on the deck of a ship) was how comfortable they were in each other’s space. They were siblings, or something, and maybe that was normal. He’d never really paid attention before. As they stood talking to the scientist boy, in the CIA base, Charles lounged against the rail, leaning into the girl, and she held her body turned toward his. Charles’ chocolate brown tail, always very slightly scruffy and unkempt, brushed against her ankles. Every time he noticed, it sent a shiver of unease through him. He kept his own sleek silver tail coiled tightly against his leg- an old habit.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize that Charles is just like that. Touch is just another form of communication for him, not the fraught, frightening thing it often is for Erik. A hand on a shoulder, the brush of his tail, the bump of his shoulder. At first, he keeps his distance from Erik, for which Erik is grateful. Hell, the man is probably fully aware of exactly how uncomfortable touch makes him.

Gradually, Erik grows more comfortable in Charles’ presence; stops tensing his shoulders whenever Charles enters a room, stops trying to keep Charles in his line of vision at all times, stops scanning Charles’ body for pieces of metal that he could use to control the man if push came to shove. A few times, he even allowed Charles to put a hand on his shoulder. But the first time Charles’ tail brushes against his, Erik jumps away, heart pounding in his throat.

From the way Charles’ eyes widen, Erik can tell that he just experienced the same snatches of memory that Erik did. -feet stepping heavily on his tail, grinding it into the mud as he cried out in pain - hands, invasive, frightening in a way a twelve year old didn’t understand, pulling at his tail – the things they said, called him, “animal” “freak” – the sneering cruelty and fear on their faces, even the faces of his fellow Jews – Charles was speaking to him, quickly, quietly.

“The tail made you different. They were scapegoating you like the Germans had scapegoated them. It wasn’t you they hated, Erik, it was-”

Jerking a hand up between them, Erik cut him off. “No. I don’t need… I don’t want… just… don’t.”

Charles gazed at him intently, brow slightly furrowed, inscrutable, but eventually let it go in silence.

The road trip gathering mutants (and wasn’t that a twisted thought) meant so much time alone with Charles that he almost grew accustomed to the company after so many years of traveling alone. Erik was still aware of a certain tension between them – a kind of intensity and hyperawareness – but it was no longer frightening. When Charles leaned across him to grab something, or knocked their shoulders together as they walked, Erik no longer moved away.

Sometimes he thought – imagined? – that Charles’ hands lingered on his body too long when they touched, that Charles’ watched him when his back was turned, but Charles never gave an indication that it was anything but inside Erik’s head, so he mostly ignored it. And if he took to leaning into Charles in his turn, grazing their arms together, standing closer beside him, putting their heads side by side to look at a map instead of demanding it be handed to him, well, Charles never mentioned that either. Maybe it was a normal-people thing (normal-mutant thing), like Charles had with Raven. Erik had no way of knowing.

And if Erik maybe, maybe, doesn’t keep his tail so close to his body any more – at least when it’s only Charles in the room – it’s nobody’s damn business but his own.

They get lost somewhere in Virginia. The summer heat in the car is stifling, so Charles has the map spread over the hood to study in the bright sunlight, and he’s laughing, at both of them, at their ineptitude, the fact that a British aristocrat and a German holocaust survivor between them can’t find their way through suburban America. His head is tucked down against his chest, shoulders shaking, and tail swishing cheerfully behind him. Erik is chuckling too, mostly at how happy Charles looks.

He doesn’t even notice when his tail curls out and brushes against Charles’. It feels as natural and easy as touching the rest of him has proved to be. But he notices when Charles looks sharply at him, the laughter fading from his eyes. Erik can feel the faintest pressure in the back of his mind, warm, earthy and inquisitive, like cinnamon – that too is familiar. It’s been there since the beginning, since that same presence screamed at him in the depths of the ocean. It feels safe, having it – having him – there at the back of his consciousness. Erik doesn’t know what Charles is seeing in his head right now, all he knows is that he can still feel Charles’ (admittedly fluffy) tail against his, and its sending chills up his spine, adrenaline – part fear, part arousal.

“Erik?” The voice is tentative, unsure in a way Charles rarely sounds. Erik isn’t sure what the question is, but he knows the answer.

He swallows. “Yes.”


End file.
